Red River Campaign

The Red River Campaign was an American Civil War campaign which occurred from 10 March to 22 May 1864 when the Union general Nathaniel P. Banks launched a failed attempt to capture Shreveport, Louisiana from the Confederacy and invade Texas.

In 1864, Union general-in-chief Henry Halleck planned a three-pronged assault on Shreveport and Alexandria, Louisiana: Nathaniel P. Banks' army would march from New Orleans in the south to secure Alexandria, where he would be joined by David Dixon Porter and Andrew Jackson Smith's forces, while Frederick Steele would advance southeast from Arkansas to secure Shreveport. Their objectives would be to destroy Richard Taylor's Confederate army, capture the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department's headquarters at Shreveport, confiscate up to 100,000 bales of cotton from the Red River plantations, and organize pro-Union state governments in the region. The capture of East Texas would deprive the Confederates of guns, food, and supplies, and would also prevent the Confederates from seeking aid from Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico and his 25,000 French troops across the Mexican border.

In March 1864, Banks set out with his 30,000-strong army, and the Confederate commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, Edmund Kirby Smith, correctly predicted that Shreveport and not Mobile, Alabama would be the Union army's target, moving several of his men to the Shreveport area. On 14 March, A.J. Smith's Union force surprised and captured Fort de Russy on the Red River, and, as Porter's fleet sailed down the river, Taylor was forced to abandon Alexandria and cede south and central Louisiana to the Union forces. On 20 March 1864, A.J. Smith's force arrived at Alexandria, intending to rendezvous with William B. Franklin's portion of Banks' army. Franklin did not arrive until 25 March, followed by Banks a day later, and, in the meantime, Union cavalry general Joseph A. Mower captured 250 of Taylor's cavalrymen in a raid on the Henderson's Hill outpost to the north of Alexandria. When Ulysses S. Grant took total command of the Union Army from Halleck, he told Banks that he would have to capture Shreveport as soon as possible, as Smith's command would be ordered to return to William T. Sherman's army in mid-April regardless of Banks' success.

On 31 March, Banks' men reached Natchitoches, 65 miles south of Shreveport. Taylor and his less than 20,000 Confederate troops stationed themselves 25 miles northwest of Pleasant Hill, and Taylor was again forced to withdraw as the Union army neared Shreveport, skirmishing along the way. On 8 April, the two armies met in the Battle of Mansfield, and the Confederate general Alfred Mouton was killed while leading the opening charge of the battle. The Confederates later succeeded in pushing the Union back to Chatman's Bayou, where William H. Emory held them at bay. The Union suffered 2,400 losses and the Confederates 1,000, and Banks withdrew to Pleasant Hill to rendezvous with A.J. Smith's troops and regain access to drinking water. Taylor ordered an immediate pursuit with Thomas Green's cavalry, and they met the Union in battle in the Battle of Pleasant Hill on 9 April. Thomas J. Churchill and Green's men mistakenly charged the Union center while mistaking it for the flank, and their forces suffered heavy losses from flanking fire. Taylor's men were routed, but Banks' army was again short of water and feed for the horses, so they had to withdraw downriver to Natchitoches. Both sides lost 1,600 men in the battle, but the Union were ultimately forced to retreat. On 12 April, Green was decapitated by a naval shell in another clash at Blair's Landing.

After reaching Grand Ecore, Banks was ordered by Grant to fall back to New Orleans. Kirby Smith decided to divert some of Taylor's troops north to Arkansas to crush Steele's army rather than pursue Banks, and Steele was forced to retreat to Little Rock during the Camden Expedition. On 23 April 1864, Banks routed Hamilton P. Bee's cavalry at Monett's Ferry before resuming the retreat to Alexandria. When the Union troops evacuated the city, a mysterious fire broke out, and many cotton speculators in the city were upset when the Confederates had burned most of their cotton rather than let it be captured. Taylor ultimately failed to halt the Union retreat, blaming Kirby Smith for taking away many of his troops, and on 18 May the Union repulsed Confederate attacks in a burning forest in the Battle of Yellow Bayou. The Union troops then crossed the Atchafalaya River and reached the Mississippi, where Edward Canby replaced Banks as commander of his army.

The Red River Campaign was a Union failure, and the Union's choice of attempting an impossible invasion of East Texas over capturing Mobile prolonged the war by several months. Banks' military career ended as a result of the fiasco, but the campaign did not profoundly impact the Union war effort. The Confederates lost two commanders and heavy losses, and Taylor and Kirby Smith's relations also worsened due to Taylor's anger at Kirby Smith preventing him from capturing the Union fleet.